Man claims mental illness in fatal hammer attack on his wife

Hey there, time traveller!This article was published 19/2/2013 (1388 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man claims he was suffering from a major mental illness when he killed his wife by smashing her 57 times in the head with a hammer.

Miloslav Kapsik, 63, began his jury trial Tuesday by pleading not guilty to second-degree murder. He is seeking to be found not criminally responsible. If successful, he would not go to prison but would instead be placed under the care of medical officials to determine his fate.

Ludmila Kapsik, 59, was found dead inside the couple’s Jefferson Avenue apartment in March 2010.

Crown attorney Jennifer Mann told jurors in her opening statement that Kapsik committed a brutal, unprovoked attack against his wife of 36 years. The couple had been watching a hockey game on television when Kapsik suddenly got up, grabbed a hammer from the storage room and began hitting the victim from behind.

"You'll hear him describe she was crawling away during this attack and he hit her many times," Mann said of a police interview Kapsik later gave.

After she was dead, Kapsik cleaned the blood off his hands and face, changed his clothes and sat on the couch for nearly an hour before calling 911 to report, "I hurt my wife, send the police."

Mann said Kapsik appeared to be "calm, responsive to questions and coherent" throughout his dealings with police.

Defence lawyer Greg Brodsky is expected to call medical evidence about his client later in the trial, which is set to last four weeks.